Relatively new ODK user here. I have searched in vain on the forum and elsewhere for similar issues, and am surprised not to find this is a common question.
I am using xlsform to create a form that includes a "text" type question. The question prompts the user to enter a phone number, for example 0123456789. However, I would like to instead encourage this same number to be entered as 012-345-6789, in order to avoid cases that are sometimes entered with and without hyphens. So, I am wondering how I might set up the form so that the "-" characters appear automatically in the entry prompt, and then the text fills in around them. For example, the response box would start with something that looks like: -_-_____
I am running ODK collect v1.22.3 off of an Android phone/tablet.
Would another possible solution be to place 3 integer response prompts next to each other? So for a number separated by hyphens, for example, it might look like:
xxx . / . xxx . / . xxxx
____ . ____ . _____
But I am not sure if it would be possible to create a format like that. Is it possible to design something like this (which would then record each segment as a separate variable)?
Yes exactly that would be so useful! Would be very helpful if it were somewhat flexible on formatting for dates, phone numbers, or generic ID #'s that can easily get confused if enumerators choose to either omit or include separating characters.
Just to follow-up, does this seem like something that would be relatively simple and realistic to implement? The example that Grzesiek2010 suggested would be perfect. Thanks,
I agree that if a new appearance were added, there would immediately be requests to configure it in different ways. If a contributor wanted to design a specification for this and implement the feature, it would likely be welcome. There may be some overlap with Form design: grid of text or numeric input which also relates to adding flexibility to how text fields are displayed in relation to each other.
In the mean time, I would strongly recommend the regex approach, @ThomasKraft. You can even include a warning on the same screen to make it easier for users to follow. See this example form in which a red error message is displayed until the desired format is used.